Towards a New World Synthesis

N_A_T_u_R_E_v_o_L_._3_18_1_-1_N_o_v_EM_BE_R_19_s,_-_________ AUTUMNBOOKS--------------------•2_9 us off the hook so easily. They parade and useful information, especially if they Towards a New their hard-won information in a spirit of are concerned with institutions or educa World synthesis modesty and self-criticism, and delight in tion. Yet the book also has drawbacks for warning of the hazards and limitations of such people. The material relates to only Colin A. Russell their approach. As if to hammer the point one country- though admittedly a world home they append to the book over 200 leader in chemical research - and one is pages of tables. some appendices on bound to seek comparisons with Britain, Chemistry in America, 1876-1976. By methodology and a bibliography of mas Germany and other countries if only for Arnold Thackray. Jeffrey L. Sturchio. P. sive proportions. the earlier part of the period under consid Thomas Carroll and Robert Bud. The methods. like the idea of "indica eration. Moreover, it is important that not Reidel: 1985. Pp.564. Dfl.210, $79.50, tors", derive from the social sciences. So only should national trends be compared £53.50. also, apparently, does the phraseology. but that allowance be made for different though this is mainly evident when the meanings for the variables measured. A CASUAL reader who decides to browse authors are being self-consciously coy ab Thus the criterion of professionalization through this volume is in for quite a sur out their strategy. Indeed it seems that the in chemistry is a very American one and prise. From the title one might expect an most avid users of the book are likely to be different from that in Britain where the account of American chemistry (here those students of society for whom che phenomenon first arose. Similar caution meaning c;hemistry in the United States) mistry is but another manifestation of so must be given about the definition of on the lines of those engaging and once cial conditioning and manipulation. Such various classes of chemists which mean popular series "a hundred years of this or enquirers will find a wealth of raw mate different things in different countries; that": bland, popular. ·anecdotal, synop rial brought together for the first time, and "assayer" is a case in point. tic, well-illustrated, easy on the eye and also many hints and ideas for future re It is not difficult to criticize the selection reasonably analytical. For the price and search. Yet it is as part of a series devoted and presentation of the data. One looks in size one might expect all this on a lavish to the history of chemistry that this book vain for information on such topical issues scale. Should our browser dally even for a appears, so it is not unreasonable to as the changing role and numbers of moment at the title page he will, however, enquire what chemists and historians of women in chemistry, the relation between receive the first hint of unpredictability. science might make of it. chemistry and war, and even the question The subtitle "historical indicators" sug Chemical readers will here find little of of chemists' salaries. In education, trends gests uncharted seas ahead. For, if these the content of their science, even histor in chemistry are compared with those in are not to do with the litmus-type indica ically treated. They will, however, discov history rather than in physics and biology. tors familiar to all chemists, what on earth er a great deal about its context, in which Again, there are surely more important are they? The confusion is not resolved by only the most myopic benchworker will be issues to record than the number of ex the apparently perverse and deliberate altogether uninterested. The conclusions, chemists who become deans in American appropriation of the very phrase "chemic at least for American chemists, are not universities or the ages (high) of Presi al indicators" that has for so long had a wholly agreeable, for the subject's decline dents of the American Chemical Society. quite precise if pedestrian connotation of is remorselessly depicted in the many However, the prominence given to that an entirely different kind. graphs and tables. For those who plan and specific institution is one of the "Indicators", as used by these authors, teach, these trends, however depressing, particularly creditable features of a book are long-running trends in a series of sta cannot now be ignored. If, as the authors that is always in danger of submersion in tistical data. They are measurements of claim, "chemical education begins to an ocean of generalities. change. If, for example, you analyse cen look like a sieve, leaking credentialled In reading the book I became gradually sus and other information about the em chemists in all directions", one would conscious of a sense of deja vu. Some ployment of chemists in the United States, have thought that those who advise Amer where I had met something very like it you find for the past century or so an ican youth would at least be glad to know. before, but where? The impression crys annual growth rate of about five per cent So, one imagines, would those responsible tallized into recognition by about Chapter in the chemical work-force, and that for science policy. 3. Its predecessor was nothing less than chemists have increased from 2 to 15 per For historians of chemistry, the book the massive History of Chemistry by.J .R. 10,000 of the total numbers employed in will have little appeal to those who like Partington, published by Macmillan in any work. On the other hand, the propor their history warm, human, personalized four volumes between 1961 and 1970. tion of high school chemical students who and cosy. Nor will it be of much use to Superficially the two works are light-years later specialize in chemistry has declined their polar opposites, historians of scien apart yet fundamentally they are doing the steadily, as has the esteem accorded to tific ideas, philosophies and techniques. same thing: presenting a highly idiosyn chemistry in public opinion surveys and its People to whom quantitative historical cratic view of a mountain of information coverage in newspapers. And since about science is a contradiction in terms ("his with little or no attempt to digest it into a 1910 there has been absolute growth but tory by numbers" such efforts are con coherent, readable overview of the sub relative decline in the place of chemistry in temptuously called) will look elsewhere ject. Here, perhaps, is a Partington of a the internal economy of American univer for inspiration. Nor must the sceptics be new era, with all the weaknesses and sities. dismissed as mere backwoodsmen. They strengths of the original. Indigestible it In six chapters, occupying less than half have a real point when they urge that huge may be, and one could certainly not read it the book, the authors present a profusion compilations of statistics either prove from cover to cover. But if it turns out to of tables, graphs, bar-charts and the like what you want them to prove (just select be half as useful as Partington in supplying to show how American chemistry has the right parameters) or that they merely raw information and in catalysing future changed in the context of industry, educa clothe the blindingly obvious with pseudo work, it will earn the gratitude of genera tion and its professional organization. quantitative respectability. It is to the tions to come. Whether the trends it Their conclusions are helpfully summa great credit of the authors of this book heralds in chemical history- empirical, rized in each chapter by a few "indicator that they are well aware of these dangers, pragtnatic and semi-quantitative - will highlights". For people who are prepared and do not attempt to conceal them and prove to be fruitful, time alone will tell. D to take the arguments on trust these brief can (in a couple of apposite cartoons) even conclusions are probably all that matter: laugh at themselves. Colin A. Russell is Professor of History of two or three pages of print altogether. Those whose interests lie in the so Science and Technology and Director of the History of Chemistry Research Group, Open However with typical trans-Atlantic called social history of science will find in University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 thoroughness the authors will not allow Chemistry in America a fund of good ideas 6AA,UK. © 1985 Nature Publishing Group.

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